Nancy Pelosi has very eye-catching reaction when needled by Bill Maher about forcing Joe Biden out of the election against Donald Trump
Nancy Pelosi has ridiculed suggestions that she forced Joe Biden to withdraw from the election at the expense of Donald Trump.
The former House speaker was widely accused of being one of the Democrats most involved in persuading the 81-year-old president to step down.
Pelosi was speaking about her efforts to encourage more women to run for office when Bill Maher interrupted her with a thinly veiled dig at Biden.
“I often encourage people, especially women, to run for public office,” she said on Maher’s Real Time program.
Nancy Pelosi has ridiculed suggestions that she forced Joe Biden to withdraw from the election against Donald Trump
“There’s nothing healthier in our political process than that, aren’t we excited about that…” she said, before Maher jumped in.
“Yeah, and sometimes you discourage people from participating… we’re not going to talk about that,” he said as the studio audience laughed.
“Well, people make their own decisions,” Pelosi replied.
Maher, not believing her for a second, said, “Yes, absolutely,” at which point the audience burst out laughing even louder.
“But I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you didn’t do.”
Pelosi was speaking about her efforts to get more women running for public office when Bill Maher interrupted her with a thinly veiled dig at Biden
Maher then asked Pelosi if she wanted an open competition to replace Biden, rather than just anointing Kamala Harris
“When Joe resigned, did you want it to be an open convention and not go straight to Kamala?” he asked.
Pelosi responded, “It was open. Anyone could have gotten in. She packed it up, you have to give her credit for that.”
President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, after weeks of public and private hand-wringing by Democrats following his disastrous performance at the June 27 debate.
Maher, who had been advocating for weeks to replace Biden with Harris to avoid a chaotic convention, said he was relieved that it happened.
“I absolutely do, and the Democratic Party — that’s the smartest thing they’ve done,” he said.
‘Because they just had a big internal struggle [about whether Biden should run]they couldn’t afford new ones.
“They looked like we always think, oh they’re disorganized, but they’ve got their you-know-whats in order.”